Their owner has a 600 million dollar deal with the CIA. Six hundred million dollars, how much is that Jimmy? That's three times what the Washington Post is fucking worth. He has a deal with the CIA, and they never put an editor's note next to story they run about the hacking, or Russia, or Syria. They never put a "hey by the way, the owner of this newspaper has a 600 million dollar deal with the deep state."

So is the owner of The Washington Post benefiting from CIA funds to the tune of 600 million dollars?

Seems strange that your selecting a self-authored answer that isn't the clear vote leader. I think I've done that on some other sites, but not when the voting and views were so high.
– Mark RogersJun 1 '17 at 17:54

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@TylerH A branch of Amazon.com, AWS, is the world's largest cloud service provider. Allegedly, the CIA contracted AWS's assistance in setting up their own, internal cloud. Verifying if this story is true would be an appropriate, on-topic question for SE.Skeptics. However, this question unnecessarily convoluted it with an inference to this being leverage on the CEO who also owns a media outlet, then answers their own question by quoting a political petition. They then accept their own, negatively-voted answer over many highly-voted answers provided by others. It's just really underhanded.
– NatJun 1 '17 at 19:29

Two years ago, the CIA selected AWS to build and run a special, secure cloud to be used by 17 intelligence-related agencies, in a contract valued at $600 million. That was a watershed event for Amazon, the leader in public cloud services.

The implicit claim is unproven, and probably unprovable

It seems likely to us (us being the non-billionaire users of this site) that it certainly creates the appearance of a conflict of interest for Jeff Bezos, since he owns big chunks of both Amazon and the Washington Post. And we can assume that if the CEO of the paper chooses to get involved, the writers and editorial staff of the Post might feel a conflict.

But there's no proof of that actually happening. For an intervention in the Post's policies to occur without us knowing about it, dozens of people are likely to have to agree to suppress the truth.

Should the Post acknowledge this linkage?
Let's do a thought experiment: does Jimmy Dore acknowledge who contributes to his support? If some group were to have bought large blocks of tickets or CDs, or to have committed to underwrite a show, should he have to?

600 mil * 25% profit margin * 17% ownership stake = $24 million. That's Bezos' part of the deal, potentially. The claim is misleading because "he has a deal" for the most people means that he is getting paid 600 million directly, as an athlete or an actor would.
– ventsyvJun 1 '17 at 16:27

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@ventsyv It's worth observing that the 24 million represents 0.028% of Mr. Bezos' net worth. With the average American net worth of $68828 as of the 2011 census that's like $20. Yeah, it's cool to find 20 bucks, but it's hardly mind blowing or life altering.
– corsiKaJun 1 '17 at 23:49

But the original video appears to be claiming that the Washington Post has an obligation to disclaim any stories involving merely customers of Amazon services. This seems impractical and unnecessary, since Amazon services are so widely used.

The CIA is simply one of Amazon's customers, and not even a particularly large one:

So unless you're going to require the Washington Post to put a disclaimer every time they mention the Dow Jones, or Netflix, or Comcast, requiring a disclaimer on an article mentioning the CIA seems impractical and unnecessary.

Two years ago, the CIA selected AWS to build and run a special, secure cloud to be used by 17 intelligence-related agencies, in a contract valued at $600 million. That was a watershed event for Amazon, the leader in public cloud services.

They never put a "hey by the way, the owner of this newspaper has a 600 million dollar deal with the deep state.

I'm not sure that the CIA's decision (to do business with AWS) is based on or affected by the editorial position or content of The Washington post.

The Washington Post should be honest with readers about a big conflict of interest: The newspaper's new owner Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon -- which recently landed a $600 million contract with the CIA.

The Post often does reporting on CIA activities. The coverage should include full disclosure that the owner of the Washington Post is also the main owner of Amazon -- and Amazon is now gaining huge profits directly from the CIA.

Thank you for your interest in this question.
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